…Carnegie Mellon’s Electricity Industry Center warns of a public backlash from higher costs if we try to install renewables too quickly: many Renewable Portfolio Standards are now being pulled back. Even our best costs estimates for renewables are often incomplete because they omit the requirement for new transmission and backup generation (“spinning reserve”) that comes from more reliable fossil fuels….

The key here is the “bang for the buck,” i.e., subsidies per unit of production. The Congressional Budget Office finds that nearly 80% and 54% of U.S. Department of Energy subsidies went to renewable energy projects in 2011. The tax breaks for fossil fuel companies, which are typically available to other domestic manufacturers, have an immense and immediate reward: fossil fuels supply over 80% of our primary energy….

If you visit Fairneny — and people are; people from Savoy, in particular, where a wind farm is being proposed — he will likely employ colorful language to explain to you why industrial wind turbines are a bad deal from the standpoint of noise, alleged health risks, and impact on the environment and property values. "We're screwed here," he say […]

WPD Canada has stated that the company’s board of directors have decided not to proceed with an appeal of that decision, and will not be moving ahead with what would have been an eight-turbine project.

The construction of a larger 30 megawatt capacity wind project in the same general area northwest of Kimball where a decommissioned wind project has existed in the past will triple the amount of power generated.